So are there no kids beds if you do not get the bedroom addition? I know you can't adopt without the kids bed and chest, but my upstairs isn't furnished yet (letting the stewart do it) but I'm wondering where the kids beds would go.

Thanks.

I think I read somewhere that if you decline to make the bedroom wing but furnish the upstairs with the beds, dressers and chests, you can still have kids. They will move in there. Ive never tried it myself, just what I read.

I recall the upstairs set of beds looking like regular sized beds, just singles, and then the double bed on the other side. I assumed that's where the Steward and Bard sleep. The Wiki just says small beds, but no mention of it being kids beds, which it sometimes distinguishes.

The upstairs single beds are just normal ones, but if that is all you have the children will use them, provided you have both single beds and the dresser/chest of drawers between them.

Confirmed. My Nord opted for greenhouse/alchemy tower/kitchen, but had no problem at all adding Lucia to her family.

This.

I have 2 kids, and the greenhouse. I have no steward and no housecarl, so the two single beds upstairs are what the kids use.

The upstairs Double bed is only used by the steward only if you got the bedrooms extension. I got the Enchanting Tower, Trophy Room and Armory on mine and Lydia never sleeps on the double bed assuming the double bed upstairs is for me and my wife. There is a double bed downstairs at the front of your house but i never seen anyone sleep on it though..

A word of warning If you don't build the bedroom wing adopt and move in before acquiring a housecarl and steward as they'll lay claim to the single beds on the second floor.

It seems unlikely, are you sure the housecarl or steward can claim an already assigned child's bed? I only ever had one case where the family moved in and there was no staff, Aussie was Thane, but had somehow not met her housecarl and he got left behind, it took me a while to work out he never turned up. It was the second playthrough building her houses after having done it 4 times for the previous character, and I was in a hurry. The children kept their upstairs beds after the housecarl and later the steward turned up.

I could test it out on a character who is not Thane and does not need a steward. But I would think most would have a steward or housecarl before moving the family in.

The Bard never sleeps no matter how many spare beds your house has. The housecarl and steward will claim the single beds if there are only three beds in the house, you move children in, they also will never sleep, as they give up their beds to the children. The housecarls never seem to sleep in the other player owned homes anyway.

No they can't claim an already assigned child's bed but the upstairs beds aren't automatically assigned to children. The staff won't always give up those beds preventing you from moving the children in. More then one user has reported that despite having a fully decorated house they still couldn't move the family into the house.

Did you move the family in after having both a housecarl and steward or did you just have one?

I have moved families in having both, one and none. But as I said, even though Aussie had never set eyes on that housecarl, she was Thane, so entitled to the housecarl so maybe that stuffed it up. My Orc character is not Thane in any of the Hearthfire holds, I think he might have a steward for Lakeview, so will go build another house and move some children in then go do the quests and see what happens. I am pretty sure the children will be keeping their beds though, I have never seen anything on this forum to indicate they would not.

People saying they cannot move children into a fully furnished home does not mean the staff are robbing the children of their beds. The staff always use the beds before the children move in, so that was not the reason why they could not adopt/move the family into the home. There was always some other reason for it, usually some PC player with mods stuffing the DLC up, or some lazy builder who only built one bed, never built the dresser, or built the bedroom wing and never had both chests and/or both beds.

Edit

Testing this might take a while, my Orc is my least capable character and has just started having town attacks with Dawnguard. But I will get there.

I first heard of this bug before the dlc was out on the PC. And your test if for something completely unrelated to what I'm talking about.

Moving children into a house requires free beds space. If your house if fully staffed (without the bedroom wing) before your children move. It may prevent the game from recognizing the house as valid for adoption. The bug is listed on the usep.

To test this you would build a house. Fully furnish the mainhall etc. could probably ignore the wings. Get the house fully staffed and then after some quests see if its a valid home.

I have had a fully furnished house, with all staff some 15 odd times before children were adopted (Braggen had 5 goes at hearthfire before I decided I was happy with the result and got no major bugs), about another 5 times I had the housecarl or the steward before adopting (Aussie usually had someone in the house before adopting) and once soon to be twice had no staff before adopting. That does not mean the bug does not exist, they were all on the Xbox 360, my PS3 character has no current interest in house building.

And as I have already said, someone complaining it is a bug does not mean it is, they stuff it up with mods, it is not a bug with the DLC. And I have spoken to many on this forum who supposedly had a fully furnished house and were complaining they could not adopt, none of them actually had a bug with the DLC. So whatever the wiki might say, does not make it so. It was just probably someone complaining who never came here first.

Edit

And when moving the children in before any staff, and then getting the staff, the children kept the upstairs beds. True I only did it twice, but we never had any complaints about that that I noticed anyway.

Well at least I can still get the kids if I don't make the bedrooms. Thanks.

You can get kids and not even build a house, just get the children's bedroom for one of the old player homes. Proudspire is a good one as it adds an entire new room.

You know the last few characters I've played have never even bought a city house. I used to buy Whiterun's all the time just to store stuff in, but now I just let Lydia carry everything until I can buy a country home. Just love the HF homes.